On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 07:35:08 -0700 (PDT), kate sisco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My major was sociology until I changed it to geology and I remember my soc teacher > making a point about an abandoned car at the side of the road (I like these examples > so much better than esoteric ones that cant be proved or disproved) and the time > frame and events that happened within the time frame. First the car was noted as > abandoned by people driving the route after one day, then the second day passes and > it becomes apparent that this abandoned vehicle is not going to be claimed and the > destruction begins: maybe a tire is stolen, then windows are broken, then in an > final orgy of the car being set on fire.
Sometimes i doesn't take a day. Many years ago, my uncle (who lived in the Bronx) was driving on the Cross-Bronx Expressway when he got a flat tire. He pulled over and was working on changing it when another guy pulled over. The guy told my uncle - you take the tires, I'll take the engine! > Speaking of "free will" in a context in which society enforces its beliefs by > withholding jobs or choices of housing by limiting income is an exercise in > arragance by people who have never had to make choices that depend on accepting > consequences that forego partaicipating in normal society. > In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, he sees just that. There is no free will if > one's will is in opposition to the majority. There is only madness or suicide. > Thoughts? Well first, I think that suicide in itself can be considered an act of free will. But anyway, on the larger point, I think that the way that a society reacts to, restricts, supports, or punishes acts of "free will" is an entirely separate issue than that of whether free will exists. Maybe I'm wrong, but as I see it, the question is whether everything a person does, are all choices made purely a function of his biology, society, environment, etc, or is it real choice? Are we more than the sum of our inputs? So I think Huxley could fairly say that a society can strongly disincentivize acts of free will (presuming it does exist) to the point it is no longer being exercised, but short of, say, brain washing or lobotomy, I don't think it can actually, truly remove free will. -bryon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
